My biological father had an affair with my biological mother, a coworker.  My mother had me, gave me up for adoption, and never said anything else about me or their affair.  I am not sure he knew anything about me, although working with a woman you had “relations” with and seeing her stomach swell would cause some concern, you would think.  The beauty of the mind is it can create connections, make up stories, and absolve us of any responsibility.  Since my biological mother was married, who’s to say the increase in belly circumference wasn’t due to her husband.

So maybe he didn’t know or didn’t want to know.  After all, my non-identifying information that I received from the adoption agency tells me he already had children of his own from his own marriage.  Therefore, maybe he already had enough ties, saw enough first steps, heard enough first words, witnessed enough first dates, weddings, grand kids and opportunities.  Why would or should one more mean anything?

Because it was mine.

Over those 42 Father’s days, I can’t say I thought a lot about my biological father.  That statement does not come from a bitter corner of my heart and is not said to inflict retaliatory pain.  It is said honestly and matter-of-factly.  The emotion that should be connected to this person was never planted so it never grew and that is a shame.  Every now and then I run back to that little patch of heart-space where that feeling should be hoping the beginnings of something will show; hoping a small, tiny, curled up leaf will be breaking through the flesh of my heart right next to my right coronary artery or from underneath my left anterior descending artery.

Logically, it makes sense.  How can I feel a connection to something I never had a connection with.  But hope and the fact that so many have that connection to their biological father  makes me stroll by that place straining to see the first sign of growth from this germinating seed.

Nothing.

This week I reached out to test this absence of feeling.  I wrote a check and signed the paperwork to begin the process of locating my biological father.  Since his co-worker/my biological mother never shared with anyone his name, no one but the adoption agency knows his name.  To get his name, that was typed out clearly by a manual type writer and added to MY file that I can’t get access to,  I had to petition the probate court of Wayne County, Michigan to allow access to MY file.  Once that was done,  the court gave access to MY file, to a court appointed intermediary, an unrelated third party, who will open my file, get MY biological father’s name and begin the search.  Although, the intermediary is appointed by the court, she is paid by me.  Last Wednesday, I wrote the check and signed the agreement to move forward in this unjust process.

Now I wait and calculate and strategize.  I calmly run through possible scenarios like a pilot would run through a checklist prior to a flight.

If he’s alive and willing to meet, request a meeting.

—–If the meeting goes well…

—–If the meeting doesn’t go well…

If he’s alive and unwilling to meet, hope shrivels and dies; the heat too intense for survival.

—–Hope could still live in another relative that wants to meet.

If he’s dead, request a death certificate, search for an obituary tied to the name that is now released because dead people can’t object to their privacy being violated.  In the obituary search for names of relatives and reach out to them; knowing I maybe the one who has to tell someone their father, brother, uncle, cousin had an affair 43 years ago.  Request a meeting.

—–If that meeting goes well…

—–If  that meeting doesn’t go well…

The possibilities branch out like roots from a tree moving and sprawling in every direction; over and back, reaching and clawing for room to grow.

My hope is that through the stress, as I plod forward in a mechanical and logical way, a connection to my DNA will water and feed that small dark and cold place in my heart.  My hope continues. From the stressful search, I will find someone who looks like me, acts like me, and someone who will accept me; be excited to find me. Someone who was looking for me. Someone who…

Hope quickly grows into fantasy as it has since I can remember.  As a child, the thoughts of who I came from rode on my stream of consciousness and this simple question evolved in to an elaborate secret fantasy.  A fantasy that over the years got pushed further and further in to that dark corner because no one shared it with me.  No one came looking for me.  No one spoke about it in my home. I assume because they thought it would bring up too much pain. But ignoring my reality probably created more pain than was ever tied to this small seed. So I danced alone with this elaborate secret fantasy for many years and as most children do, I grew out of the need for this imaginary relationship;  frustrated with a relationship that only took and never gave.  I filed it away but occasionally I would return but never spending much time with it.

Now I’ve come to a point where I just want it resolved.  I want a real story and not fantasy.  The unworthiness that attaches itself to adoption tries to convince me I don’t need this or I shouldn’t be entitled to answers.  But my ever-evolving,  I-deserve-more-attitude pushes through to find more of me in those answers.

The unstoppable ball is in motion and soon the answer will come and I’m not sure how I will respond, if at all.  Maybe, I’ll find him alive and he will want to meet and at that meeting,  I can give him a Father’s day card and 43 ties…

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As I exited my dorm, I so longed for someone who spoke the same language as me.  Everyday in Detroit, I was in close contact with my black friends.  Whenever I went to the store, I saw black people and even though I would go home to a white household and white neighborhood I only played the minority part-time.

Once I moved on campus, I was a minority full time for the first time in my life and I was shaken.  I craved the company  of those who saw life as I saw it.  I yearned for the private jokes and non-verbal contact I had with friends who carried an extra amount of melanin in their skin.  The stress of being one of a few instead of one of many wore on me like a weighted vest.  Seven days in this white environment , 24 hours a day, had taken from my step the joy I clung to in Detroit.

I chose to continue my education at a small private college of about 1100 students.  Of the 1100, one percent was black and the campus was a mirror image of my black high school.  The first week at college was for freshman only so I found only 2-3 students who looked like me.  I clung to them as if they held my oxygen.  But those few that I found were not like those at home.  They had been in more diverse environments during high school so they knew how to assimilate better than I did.

Back home we translated these types of blacks as ‘wanna-be whites” and had no patience for them.  I didn’t fit in with the few blacks that were there and I was ravenous for someone who looked like me and could relate to me.

As the upper upperclassmen  returned to  campus on the seventh day of my trip to  never-ever land, I saw in the distance an unfamiliar black student.  My heart leaped as I longed for someone black like me. I increased my steps in the hopes that we would be from the same cloth.  He saw me and increased his steps.  He too seemed to crave someone who spoke his tongue.

He was from Brooklyn,New York.  He was ½ Jamaican and ½ English with dark walnut skin.  His high school experience was like mine cocooned in an environment of mostly black students.  He also walked the campus feeling the weight of the stress associated with being one of a few and we were like minded.   Finally, I met someone who I could exhale around.  Someone who understood how it felt to move between the extremes and feel so lost and starved for someone else who saw the world as he did.

Over the next few years we carried each other through the friendly but unspoken hostile campus that didn’t shun us but didn’t welcome us either.  It was a world where words and actions were investigated and intentions were suspect even from those who presented as friendly.

After college he returned to Brooklyn and we kept track of each other for the first 15 years and I have lost track of him over the past 6 years.  I am thankful for his presence during that time in my life.  He was a life preserver that kept me afloat in questionable waters.  The comfort of having a like-minded friend that understood the unspoken was priceless.

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Over those 21 years, I thought a lot about my birth mother and wondered about her, but I never shared that with my mom and dad. Recently, I realized we were both waiting for the other to say something. My parents assumed since I didn’t bring it up that I wasn’t thinking about it. I assumed since they didn’t bring it up, they didn’t want to talk about it and didn’t know anything.

Often, I hear the same assumptions from adoptive parents especially about the issue of race. “Kevin doesn’t have issues with race because he never says anything about it. But, when he does say something, we will talk about it.”

Many adoptees learn early on how to protect those around them. So, if an issue comes up about race, and we already sense our family isn’t comfortable talking about it, we just don’t say anything. We believe it will hurt them, so we hide it to protect them.

The number of racial incidents and issues I had growing up are beyond my ability to count. The number of incidents I shared with my parents I can count using my fingers and still have some digits left over to type this post.

I have heard children notice racial differences as early as a few months old and as late as 3 years old. Assuming your child of color doesn’t realize or feel different in an all-white family and environment because they haven’t said anything is at best an oversight. Giving the child of color the responsibility of addressing this issue or starting this conversation is at best a misstep.

When I hung the phone up in my college dorm room, I was relieved that Mom and Dad were so open to me searching for my birthmother and happy they knew so much about her. As I walked across my college room, relief and happiness swirled into confusion. “How come they never shared this information with me over the past 21 years?” was the question that echoed off the walls of my small room. “I guess I should’ve asked” was the thought that bounced back. The role of protector had become such a part of me.

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Recently I sat down and tried to compute the amount of exposure I had to children of color while growing up.  Below is the math behind the exposure.

AGE EXPOSURE

0-3          None

3-8          Approximately 6 hours/day for 5 years (10,950 hours)

8-18        Approximately  4-5 hrs/day for 10 years (16,425 hours)

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Over first 18 years of my life - 27,375 hours or 1140.625 days, or  3.125 years of constant 24/7 exposure.

Once I saw the numbers I was in shock.  This was the formula that allowed me access to a culture I would know nothing about without this exposure.  Looking up at this number is like sitting at the base of a mountain looking straight up trying to see the top.  It is overwhelming, and frustrating.  How do I get those of you who read my blog to get close to these numbers?  Then even more questions came flooding in.

What is enough exposure?  Is 5 hours a week enough?  What number will tip the scales in favor of a more connected life?

Is this transracial thing really doable?  Can parents strike the right balance and give their transracial children enough exposure?  Am I asking parents to do what is simply impossible?  If a transracial family lives in an all white environment how can they possibly get the exposure their child needs?

I sat and chewed on this for several days.  Who’s to say my exposure is the right balance?  Could we get away with ½ of those numbers?  How do we do it?  I get asked that a lot by transracial parents.  After seeing the numbers I wonder if striking this balance is possible.

After several more days of chewing, an old cliche came to mind.  “How do you eat an elephant?  ONE BITE AT A TIME.”  Never attempting to raise the fork to your mouth will assure the elephant stays whole.

So where do we start?  First, we have to know where we are.  To this point, I have talked about the importance of exposing your child to their culture and I wrote about the importance of having a measurable Cultural Connection Plan(ccp). I have talked about the fact that developing those connections must be intentional, and I have explained what racial isolation is and how that can be a hellish experience for a child of color.

What is your Cultural Exposure Time(CET)?  How many hours a week do you spend in activities that expose your child of color to their culture?  Just as I broke my numbers down this will help you really understand where you are and it provides an easy measurable way to increase that exposure.

Grab the fork and let’s dig in. It is time to get to work.

The one order we would get before we walked through those magic glass doors that opened by themselves was simple; “Make sure you stay with me,” Mom would say.  Then the adventure began.  Mom would whisk up and down the isles checking off items one by one on a list written on the back of an envelope or on a scrape piece of paper. Her mission was to save as much money as possible and our mission, job and responsibility was to keep up with her.

The phase, “No child gets left behind,” meant nothing to Mom.  If you were slow, you got left behind. If you got distracted by the toy aisle that sat next to the cereal aisle, you got left behind.

I can remember several times seeing and feeling my mother right beside me and then I would look away for a fraction of a quarter of a second and she would dissolve and be gone. If I was lucky, I would catch a blur of her whipping around the corner of an aisle, but usually she would just be gone.  I would stand in the middle of the aisle in dead silence as the shelves of groceries seemed to grow taller as I shrank. I would frantically whip my head around but I knew it was no use.  When she was gone, she was gone.That feeling of being lost, cut off from the world in the A and P was terrifying.  I felt alone in a store full of people.

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Last summer, at 42 years old, for the first time in my life I sat down with a group of transracial adoptees.  For three days, I got to move in an environment with adults who lived their lives like I have lived mine; as a minority in tour own families.

I was excited to hear their stories, their experiences, and their interpretations of life as transracial adoptees. Over this 72 hour period, I heard, saw, felt, and experienced the pain, hurt, and anger of several transracial adoptees. There were meetings we had where I just wanted to run out and away from the confusion, the tears, the shouts, and the cussing.

At night, I would lie awake wondering if I missed it. Anxiety would seize me and descend on me like a blanket. Was I in denial? Was I ignoring the powerful feelings that so many shared during the day? Why was my experience so different?

About 48 hours in to this new world the answer to my last question was clear. My experience was different.

My experience of growing up in a white family but always in touch with people who looked like me, I was  finding out was unique. Many transracial adoptees are adopted by white families, live in white environments, and never have the vital connections I had.

Often this lack of connection is compounded by the fact that race is never talked about in the home. This creates what someone called “Racial isolation.”  That term hit me across the forehead when I took the time to really hear it.

To live in racial isolation where you are treated differently at school, at church, on the playground, in your neighbor, and then come home where you can’t or don’t discuss it would be a torturous existence.  Growing up like that, in my opinion, would be a living hell.

Over those 72 hours, I got to see and understand a side of transracial adoption that I didn’t experience but now I understand better. To survive such a life would not be easy and the hurt, pain, and anger that would throb in my chest would be very difficult to contain.

The alone and isolated feeling I felt in the A and P felt like it lasted an eternity but in reality lasted one to two minutes.  Once I ran down the aisle and checked the aisles to the left or right, I would find my Mom, pushing the shopping cart, with one to three of my brothers and sister. My siblings were not immune to our mother’s disappearing act so rarely were we all together at one time in the A and P. Once connected I would fall back in line behind the shopping cart that was quickly being filled and I was no longer alone.

Living life surrounded by people but still isolated and alone will change a child and the road to finding themselves as they grow will not be as easy as running to the next aisle.

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Five minutes after Mom left, as I was deciding what to do with my freedom, the devil showed up at our front door.  It was the neighborhood legion of boys wanting to know if I could come out and play on the skateboard.  The offer was bright and shinny and I began to salivate.  Drool was pouring from my mouth and the last words of my mother evaporated.  I couldn’t wait to take a bite.

I ran outside as we all devised a plan.  Mark was the only one in the neighborhood who had a skateboard.  His mother ignored the universal rules of mothers and bought Mark this loaded gun on wheels.  Mark and his yellow banana skate board were coveted and I couldn’t wait to jump on.  But neighborhood protocol had to be followed.  The hierarchy of the street was drawn up by age and no one questioned it.  Mostly because the older kids were bigger and stronger and could enforce this rule upon those of us that were younger.

I had to wait my turn and I sat on the side of the street as I watched the older kids whiz by me on this plastic piece of heaven with wheels.  As each kid rode they were encouraged to go faster and faster.  The wheels of invention were turning in each of us as we designed ways to assist the next dare devil in breaking the sound barrier.

“Ok, you stand on the skateboard at the top of the drive way and use the hill of the drive way to give you speed.”

“Now, lets push Wayne while on the skate board at the top of the drive way.”

Slowly we were inching closer and closer to wreckless operation of a vehicle but the adrenaline rush was intoxicating.  Then it was as if the light of heaven shown down and illuminated the quiet bike that sat resting on a neighbors lawn.  Then the God-given spot light moved to the jump rope that laid on the sidewalk.   After pausing on the jump rope the celestial spot light  moved to the skate board.  It was as if God was calling us to add and combine these elements.  I am sure Eve justified to herself the snake was an instrument of God too.

Simultaneously several of us saw the equation and spoke it in to existence.

“Let’s tie the jump rope to the back of the bike and someone can get on the skateboard and hold on to the other end of the rope.  Then someone will get on the bike and pull the kid on the skateboard.  It’ll be like water-skiing.   Ohhhhh… that way the kid on the skateboard will be flying.”

The plan was hatched and laid and couldn’t be more perfect.  It was my turn on the skateboard and peer pressure overrode common sense.  I bravely got on the skateboard and signaled the operator of the bike/speed boat to “punch it.”

The sudden start nearly detached my arms from my body as I held on to the jump rope with both hands.

Initially, it was fun.  My friends stood at the edge of the street cheering me on and I felt like my hero, Evil Knievel.  Then as the speed increased, the cheers were drowned out by fear.  Then the machine began to malfunction.  The skateboard began to wobbled at the high rate of speed.  Fear was replaced by panic and all I could hear was,  “She’s breaking up, she’s breaking up!!”

Panic took over completely and  now I was just a blur to my friends, but to me it was all playing out in slow motion.  I leaned back and kicked the skateboard out from underneath me, still holding on to the jump rope.  I was now parallel to the street and straight as a board.  Then gravity took over.  I slammed to the cold Detroit street flat on my back and elbows: still holding the jump rope.  I was then dragged on my elbows for a few feet before survival overrode panic and I let go of the rope.

I rolled to my side and got up and over to the edge of the street.  Thankfully, in my moment of temptation God  allowed me to fall right in front of my house.  Instinct got me to this point and now as my senses returned I realized I couldn’t breathe.  The hard impact with the street  caused the wind to be knocked out of me.

I struggled to tell my pit crew,  “I… I…. I…. can’t breathe.”

The look of horror in their eyes was not comforting at all.  I struggled to get to my feet and ran inside to get some water. I thought drinking water would help.  I stumbled inside and  headed straight to the kitchen sink.  I rested my elbows on the counter as I got a drink and by now air had returned.  I silently thanked God for filling up my lungs.

When I lifted  up my elbows off the counter to stand up straight and take in a deep cleansing breath, I discovered the counter was covered in blood.  The dragging on the street did some damage to the skin and flesh on my elbows.  I was a bloodied mess and pain rushed in immediately.

While standing in the kitchen in pain and unsure what to do, Mom came home thankfully.  There was no way to hide my disobedience and I had to tell her about my ride with the forbidden fruit.  Instead of the “I told you so” speech, she took me over to our neighbor who was a nurse and they dressed my elbow wounds with large pieces of gauze and antibiotic cream.  Mom then took me home,  gave me ice cream, and she told me to just relax and go watch TV.

For the next 30 minutes I just knew Mom was going to come in and yell at me… but she never did.  She came in to check on me and change the gauze that  had quickly filled up with blood and she just sat with me and watched cartoons.

Sometimes it so much more about parenting than adoption or race.

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My first  mom was white and my first dad is black.  Physiologically, I am just as much white as I am black so from now on I will introduce myself as a Caucasian.

Soon after, the men in little white Good Humor man jackets will cart me away.

I often get asked, if I am biracial why didn’t I choose to identify with my white side versus my black side.  My quick answer is I didn’t know I had a choice.

When I was 8 years old my family and I moved from our black neighborhood to a white neighbor where I was the only black child on our block.  In the initial meeting with the neighborhood boys, my secret was found out.  They all took one look at me and immediately discovered I wasn’t white.  If I would have known back then that I could have just said, “no no, I’m biracial so just consider me white,”  and I would have fit right in easier, I would have considered pointing that out.

The truth is,  I am do not appear white and will never pass for white.  I have often been mistaken for Hispanic and even middle eastern, but never white.

When I was a child I made a conscious choice or actually the choice was made for me.  Everything and everyone around me told me I was black.   I was perceived as black so I identified as black.  But just because I identified with black doesn’t mean I despise white.  I am very proud of the black community I am a part of but that doesn’t mean I loath the white community.  I can hear someone asking,  “What about your pride for the white community?”  My answer although it may be incomplete is simple.  I never felt a part of the white community so I never developed that sense of pride  for the white community, but again that doesn’t mean I don’t respect it.

So from now on maybe I will introduce myself as Kevin Hofmann, the biracial with black leanings.  Who knows?

The frustration involved outweighed the fun I was supposed to be having.  There were two large reasons why I hung up my controller.  The first reason was that I was no longer able to beat them.  The pain I feel in the middle of my chest to the left of my sternum as I admit that makes me flinch.   I need a moment…..Okay I’m good.

This pain is a light caress compared to the pain I felt when they would beat me and then fill the air with trash talk.  That pain felt like they were ripping my flesh from my bones and submersing me in an alcohol bath.  My ability to remain calm and fatherly failed miserably as soon as the flesh ripping trash talk began.

The second reason was the lying by omission.  This again peaked my frustration.  Somewhere in the middle of a red-hot battle as my character sped across the screen some unknown object or monster-sized character would come out of nowhere and turn me to dust.  When I would ask what that was my sons would then reveal a key rule in the game that would have been most beneficial BEFORE we started the game.  They claimed they forgot about this crucial rule and nonchalantly continued to beat me to a bleeding pulp.  There’s that chest pain again.

They knew the rules better than they knew how to breathe.  They just choose to leave out this critical information given me no earthly chance at beating them.  The sinister joy that covered their face when they conquered their father was also very disturbing.

When I was about  eight years old, a group of friends and I went to the corner store, Brickley’s to get some candy.  I was the only child of color in the group and I was excited because it was my first visit to the store.  I was given a quarter and told by my Mom to hold my older brother’s hand as we crossed the busy street.  When we entered the store I went right to the candy and quickly picked a bag of Gold Rush gum.  It was an even exchange,  my quarter for the bag of gum.  I reached in my pocket and pulled out my only quarter and gave it to the old German woman who ran the store.  I put the candy in my pocket and stood to the side of the counter waiting for my friends to make their selections.

A few moments later, the German woman began pointing at me and yelling.  Her German accent was thick and my panic from being yelled at made it impossible for me to understand what she was saying.  She then pointed at my pocket and held out her hand.  Then she pointed to the palm of her hand.  I was still confused and shocked and scared.  I knew something was wrong, but I wasn’t sure what.  One of my older friends picked up on what she was trying to  say.  She wanted me to pay for the candy in my pocket

My problem was I already did.

It was plain to me I did because the quarter I was given was no longer in my pocket.  I tried to explain to the excited store-owner that I had already given her my one and only quarter.  She demanded I pay her for the gum and in her broken English I clearly heard her say,  “You steal!”

To be accused of stealing was humiliating.  I hadn’t known this group of friends too long.  We just recently moved in to the neighborhood and they didn’t know me too well.  The look on their faces told me they weren’t sure if I was a thief or not.  I stood motionless, not knowing what to do.  I didn’t know how to resolve the situation.  Thankfully, a white gentleman who was in the store saw what was happening.    He bent down and asked me,  “Did you pay for that son?”  I nodded my head because speech would have caused the tears, that were damned up behind my eyes, to flow.  He reached into his pocket, pulled out a quarter, and put it on the counter.

My friends concluded their transactions and we all returned home and never spoke about the incident in Brickley’s again.   I never went back to Brickley’s.

Looking back on that incident, I am convinced I was targeted because I was black.  This old German woman believed the stereotype that all blacks were thieves and she made sure I stayed out of her store.  Instead of putting the blame on this bitter German woman, I shouldered the blame.  I thought there was something I should have done to prevent this incident from happening.  I felt like I embarrassed my friends also.  That day I lost some height.  Leaving the store I walked smaller than when I went in.

No one shared with me the rule that I may be treated differently because my skin is darker than most.  I was mid-way through the game and realized the rules that I play by are different.  Knowing the rules of the game takes the burden off of me.  If I understand that some people may treat me differently because of the tone of my skin before they get to know me, then I can see they are the smaller person NOT me.

“But we have never experienced racism in our town/city/village so telling our child about racism only adds to the problem of racism.”

My answer is the same when I am talking to my kids about video games.  Tell me everything that might happen.  Explain to me the possibilities that exist.  Give me full disclosure as to the rules by which I am playing and then let me play.  If I don’t know all the rules when I am playing the game and I lose, I walk away from the game thinking it is me who is bad not the game or the rules.

“At what age do I explain the rules and how do I explain the rules?”

I don’t know.

Each parent knows their own child and what they can understand and what they can’t.

I can only share how I introduced the rules to my son.  When my youngest was about seven or eight, the story about the Harvard professor who was arrested on his own front porch was all over the news.  We were watching TV together and it was the perfect opportunity to explain the rules.  Then I could point out what the police could have done better, and what the professor could have done better.  Now if my son ever gets in that situation, he knows the rules and how to play the game to win and the rules have nothing to do with him personally.

Since they can’t retire from the world like I can from video games I have to explain all the rules so they can compete.  It is my job to try and prevent the most flesh ripping pain I can.

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I was the product of an affair between my white  mother and black father and for obvious reasons, I was given up for adoption immediately after I was born.  My biological mother transported me from the hospital to my foster home and that was the last time we saw each other over 43 years ago.

Three months later after my biological mother and I parted, I was adopted by a white minister, his wife, and their three biological children.  It was the fall of 1967 in Detroit, just three explosive months after the riots that changed the city forever.

Growing up in Detroit at such a time was a mixture of childhood bliss and adult conflict.  There were often times this powder keg of emotion was swirling around me and I was oblivious to it all.  My parents shouldered a large majority of the racism and struggle that our colorful family faced.  This is not to say that I didn’t see any of it because I did.  I was very aware of my color and the negative attention that could come with the additional melanin in my skin.

Fortunately, in the early 70’s and 80’s, Detroit became the perfect storm for me.  Because of the riots, the whites were leaving the city rapidly and the city, its neighborhoods, and schools were quickly becoming predominately black.  This assured that I would always see another face that looked like mine on a daily basis.  Because of that, I became very comfortable with who I was as a black child and learned about a culture in a way that my parents couldn’t teach me.  My racial identity and pride came through osmosis.  I sucked it in from the black children around me.

As I stated, my childhood was not without struggle.  When I was eight, we moved to a new neighborhood in Detroit; a neighborhood that hadn’t felt the color shift, just yet.  I was the first child of color on our block and immediately the white children I played with let me know I was different.  This was an alarming change for me because the neighborhood I came from was all black.  Now I had to deal with being the different child.  It was tough and uncomfortable but the pride that was injected in to me by my black friends from the old neighborhood and at school everyday gave me a solid foundation to weather this storm.

Growing up as a transracial adoptee has been a unique experience. In the end, I consider it a positive one and I spend my professional time speaking to adoption professionals and adoptive parents to share what my parents got right and what they could have done better.

It is not an easy lifestyle and because of that I am a conditional supporter of transracial adoption.  It is not something for everybody.  So I am very passionate about letting anyone interested in transracial adoption know the challenges, the struggles, and also the joy that can come from growing up black in a family of whites.

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